Skip to main content

We Are Not That Different


Political rhetoric and, recently, political actions have thrown public K-12 and higher education into disarray. Dismantling the Department of Education and withholding funds from higher institutions due to ideological differences. Both sides of the political aisle are entrenched in their thought processes, often showing disbelief at how irrational and dangerous the other side is. The reality is that the perceived chasm is not nearly as wide as we perceive it. 

An article in the January 30, 2025, edition of Educational Researcher published their study of the gap in a paper called "The Purposes of Education: A Citizen Perspective Beyond Political Elites." The paper is cited below, and I strongly encourage anyone reading this to read from the primary source. Information from that study helps inform this post.

The goal was to address two key questions. "Research Question 1: What are citizens' opinions regarding the purpose of education in the United States? Research Question 2: Do these opinions differ significantly between Republicans and Democrats?" Their research used 19,032 respondents from a 2022 survey that asked the respondents to rate on a scale of (1) Not At All Important to (5) Extremely Important for students to learn (average rating in parentheses for each):

  1. Core academic subjects (e.g. reading, math, science) (4.4795/5)
  2. To become independent thinkers (4.3645/5)
  3. Skills for future employment (4.3029/5)
  4. How to interact with others (socialization) (4.2968/5)
  5. How to be good citizens (4.2944/5)
  6. Values, moral character, or religious virtues (3.9459/5)
  7. To fix social problems. (3.5035/5)

The authors state, "Our results indicate that respondents rate all seven purpose dimensions high, suggesting that citizens have a multi-functional view of education. Moreover, we find that Democrats and Republicans have rather similar opinions on the purpose of education, except regarding two dimensions. Democrats consider teaching children how to fix social problems as more important, and Republicans consider teaching specific values related to moral character or religious virtues as more important.”

To the extent of the differences between the parties, of the top 5 ranked dimensions, the differences in importance were all less than 0.12 points apart, with "how to be good citizens" exactly the same. The largest differences came for the lowest two ranked purposes, and those were under a half point different. Those two differences are where much of the political noise comes from.

The divisive conversations and actions live in the 10% gap on the two least important items. Those small differences have sometimes torn apart families and created chaos in the public scene. The healing happens when people can begin to look for what they have in common rather than different. When people realize that their goals and ideas align much more than they thought, they start to lose disdain, gain respect, and look for areas of compromise. These compromises are where growth and higher success come from. 

Finding agreement and working with someone we perceive as being wholly different from us is hard. It is easier to write that person off, avoid, or belittle them. That can make us temporarily feel like we "won," but it does nothing to advance the cause or bring people together to form better ideas from diverse opinions. It also leaves easy solutions from ever surfacing, stunting all chances at improvement for all. We are in this together, and without education, societies wither. For the betterment of everyone, let's realize the chasm between us is not as wide as we perceive, and start from places of agreement to work through areas of difference.

Sources: opening picture made with Sora

Henrekson, Ebba, Fredrik O. Andersson, and Jurgen Willems. “The Purposes of Education: A Citizen Perspective Beyond Political Elites.” Educational Researcher 54, no. 3 (2025): 123–31. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X231206731.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vulnerability

I cannot claim to be an expert on vulnerability, that title belongs to Brene Brown. Through her work, I have learned that being vulnerable is key to major breakthroughs in life. The opposite of this is true as well. Being unwilling to take risks, fearing failure or embarrassment, leads to stilted growth and eventual regression. The unwillingness to struggle in the short term leads to eventual major disappointment. That struggle is unpleasant, painful, draining, aggravating, defeating, and necessary. As a teacher, vulnerability arises when teaching a new grade level or content area. It happens when a re-designed lesson is taught for the first time, a new resource is used, and when being observed. Leaders face vulnerability when launching a new initiative and taking questions from stakeholders. Coaches face vulnerability when they meet with a new client or a client who operates outside the coach's wheelhouse of knowledge or skills. Humans are adept at procrastinating, which is a phys...
Post a Comment
Read more

Navigating Uncertainty

One thing most people can agree on in early April 2024 is that no one knows what to expect right now. Federal agencies are being closed at a record pace, tariffs are rocking global finances, AI is changing faster than most people can keep up with, everyone has an opinion on this, and no one can anticipate what might happen next. The stock market is a prime example of the uncertainty, and on the day I started writing this the Dow Jones surged by 800 points and ultimately fell by 600. Today as I continue writing, it rose by nearly 3000 points. There are countless ways to reach when life becomes chaotic. Some people "don't look up" as the movie's title states, because as long as you can't see the asteroid heading straight towards you it does not exist. Some like to lean into the chaos, acting like Loki, the Norse god of mischief and disruption. Others protest through marches, speeches, and boycotts. All of these are human reactions on which I place no judgment. Based...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scheduling - A School's Heuristic Problem

Students learn about algorithms in Computer Science to solve complex problems in reasonable times. Some issues are too complex even for the best algorithms to perfectly solve, and those are known as heuristics. The example commonly used is the traveling salesman. While a little outdated, and I have updated the example to be the logistics of UPS delivering packages, the story goes like this.  A traveling salesman arrives in a new town intending to get to each house in the most efficient path possible. They get a road map of all the homes they will visit and their hotel room and start mapping out paths. The math works out to show the following: Let's nerd out for a moment. Each number of possible paths is the mathematical factorial of the number of homes on the path. So 3 homes means 3*2*1 = 6 paths. 7 homes means 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 5040 homes. Just 10 homes, and we are at 10 factorial or 3,682,800 pathways! How can one possibly solve for the best route with that many choices? It is too...
Post a Comment
Read more